theists- how did you arrive at the conclusion that the idea of God has objective reality? Was it through reason? If so, expound on the argument that made you realize your theistic standpoint. If it wasn’t through reason, then write about that too, I guess. Oh, and whether your theism is of the same type that you were born in, ie the same as your family’s.
also, tell me the conditions wherewhich if they were met, you would cease being theistic, or whether such conditions don’t exist, and why you think they don’t exist.
As we were fleeing from a town engulfed in a meteor storm, my wife was turned into a pillar of berbere for merely glancing back at the destruction. From that day forward, I knew.
I was an atheists at one point and thought i knew everything and thought i was in control until i hit a huge speed bump in my life with made me call upon God, saying “if you exist reveal yourself to me.” God showed up and turned my life around. Now when i look back at being an atheist with retrospect i realize how irrational i was. How can a universe of such complexity and design have just appeared from no where by accident?
It kind of like this; if man landed on Jupiter and the first thing they saw was a machine that resemble a car, it has a steering wheel it has a seats, it has a wind shield, you open the hood and find an engine with a motor pistons etc. I would think that a rational person would immediately come to the conclution that there must be intelligent life on Jupiter capable of designing a complex machine that resembles a car. Only an irrational person would conclude that the machine/car appeared on the planet from no where or by accident and evolved over time to become what it is today.
In the same way i think of how complex the human body is, computers can not do in 5years what your brain does in split seconds. If we look at the body as a machine, it would be rational to conclude that someone who is extremely intelligent designed it. I find it harder to have faith in that this complex human body just appeared from no where by accident and evolved into what it is today. To me that logic would be the same as coming across a car on Jupiter and concluding that there is no intelligent life on the planet and that the car just got there accidentally.
So to answer your question i came to theism because it is the only logical explanation of my being.
There are probably many because people lose their faith every day and I’m human too. Who knows, maybe if one of my kid died or I lost my job, I’d have some sort of faith crisis, I just don’t know. It’s impossible to predict with any accuracy how we’ll respond to anything. Heck, there are probably a bunch of atheists on this forum who’ll soundly convert to Christianity before they die. Isn’t that a pleasant thought for them to ponder!
Upon reading this question, it strikes me that it may not be particularly fair, or possible to answer in a reasonable way. Let me explain.
Suppose I didn't believe in elephants. Why? Well, I've never met one, the only photos I've seen were very grainy and no validated by photography experts, and the people I've met who do believe in elephants aren't qualified biologists. More importantly, the idea of an elephant just seems silly to me on the face of it. Now, I might be asked, "What would it take for you to start believing in elephants?" And I'd give a very reasonable answer- evidence! Better photos, better testimony, actually meeting such a beast, and so on. Good enough.
Now, suppose I do believe in elephants. I’ve seen them regularly on T.V., good photos, everybody I know believes in elephants, many have claimed to have seen one, and while my memory isn’t perfect, it seems to me I actually rode a baby elephant once when I was very young, and saw them at the circus on several other occaisions since then. Now, if I were asked “What would it take for you to cease believing in elephants”? I’m in a completely different situation than the above. I’m not just waiting for some evidence to come in. I’m in a situation where the anti-elephant evidence has to not only be strong, but overrule and entire lifetime of experience, the experiences of my peers, and the general ‘common sense’ of my culture. I may well answer “Nothing”, or if pressed, I may come up with some fanciful scenario involving a cartesian demon or The Matrix. In that case, I’ll be accused of ‘setting the bar too high’ or ‘making it effectively impossible to change my mind’. But still, what do you expect?
Now, I suppose I believe in elephants, but only [i]weakly[/i]. That is, I heard from this guy that there's elephants, and I've never found any particular reason to [i]dis[/i]believe him, he seems nice enough, and my belief in elephants isn't really hurting anything. Then if I was asked what it would take to change my mind, I'd be much closer to the first situation- some good argument, exposure to what 'most scholars agree on', some lurid information about my friend and his tendency to convince people that fantasy creatures exist, and so on. In such a situation, it would be easy to change my mind.
I worry that when the atheist asks "What would it take to make you cease being a theist", they are assuming that the theist's belief must be the weak, second sort, and not the strong, positive sort. I also worry that for the theist to answer the question, they have to take this stance themselves.
The logic points to a higher intelligence, stronger and more intelligent living forces in reality or above this reality.
The argument does not exactly proove spirits, super advanced alien life, monotheism, pantheism or polytheism.
There could be any number of explanations and styles of describing animate causes for universal organization. #We could conclude the universe or above it is a big life-form, but it’s not really like a god, it’s more like a plant or a tree made of cosmic substances and too large to ever talk to or understand. #We could conclude alien typse with technology billions of years ahead of us, beyond sci-fi, can basically rewrite the structural rules of reality however they want, pass between dimensions, and basically are same as “gods”. #We could conclude alternatively, spirits of all sorts, billions of them or trillions, each played a little part in the creation of the material world, and each spirit was once, or usually still is, a sort of sentient living energy-based lifeform instead of a material based solid one. #We could say this all prooves a single divine infinite authority, a sort of king of the universe that built it. #We could say this can deduce to a divine mother figure which gave birth to nature. #We could say there are two gods or three, and go into any number of wild details about the color of their hair, or their personality/preferances, their plans, or whatever else.
So, after the theory of intelligent/living cause for the existence of nature, we’ll need some substantial evidence to get farther details on what that preceeding intelligence really was. This is where the sophism kicks in, and even if there was only 1 God over all, humanity has really bullshitted about that God. After all, we’ve got all of theism’s history, each one claiming to be true. If we’re polytheist we would at least accept different types of revelations, entities and miracles from different cultures, instead of being racist and saying only our race/culture knew god and the other gods were all false. With Judaism, they say they are god’s chosen people, the chosen race which only God chose, and that all the other gods are false. That carried over to christiantiy, monotheistic exlusive styles of thought. I’m willing to bet there has been more substantial theisms than the christian theism, at some point in all culture and history. It’s pretty arrogant to claim that they are the best, the right and the true, even whilst one sect says the other sect is incorrect. Basically, theists are confused, and not very substantial. Their proof is deductive-rhetorical, not solid-substantial.
Uccisore,
Fair enough. If indeed you do perceive God as I and you do an elephant, then the conditions for disbelief here would be unreasonable. Let me ask you this then; if you wanted to justify your conclusion about the idea of God with sensible evidence in the next couple of days, would you be able to? In other words, could you, like with the idea of elephants, go to a place, or do something, in order to get this sensible evidence, or are you relying on that faint memory from your childhood where you “rode the elephant”? Is it your senses that justify your conclusion about the idea of God, or is it your memory?
Also, since obviously your idea of God is very specific, I must ask you another question; did you arrive at this conception of God through your senses, meaning did you experience this very very specific idea of God, or did you feel something and then, through reflection of your memories, judged this memory to have been one idea of God, and not another? Did God present himself to you as you now fully conceptualize the idea of God? Did you conceptualize your idea of God as it is now immediately as you sensed something, or did you conceptualize afterwards, in reflection?
I know, i agree with you. It does not prove spirits super advanced alien life or any of that. But it does prove a super inteligent designer and orchestrator.
The problem with this veiw is where did this big cosmic tree come from? and is this big tree the one that inteligently created everything in the univerese down to the human reproductive system, the intricacies of the brain, its functions, digestive systems that break down food and send nutrients to millions of cells, DNA Solar Systems etc. Is this tree inteligent enough to orchestate a universe of such grandure. If so what is its purpose of creating the universe? Is this tree concious? To be inteligent the tree has to be concious.
So with all this said, if this big tree made of cosmic subsances, intelligently created arranged and controls the elements of the universe, and is concious, wouldnt it be like a god?
this leads to my same conclusion. If the Aliens created everything, that makes them super naturally powerful, super inteligent and concious beings which makes them gods.
this also leads to my conclusion. These spirits would be supernaturally powerful and inteligent making them gods.
again same conclusion. an all powerful god.
this is just another example of another diety or god
So the bottom line is no matter how you slice it, it all comes down to some inteligent god/s, whether it is a big tree, Mother nature, aliens or what ever.
that is why i said an inteligent god/diety is the only logical explanation to existance. I can not think of anything more logical than that.
Ya, sure I could. It wouldn’t be as psychologically persuasive as the things I could do to bring an elephant into evidence, but there’s locations to visit, people to talk to, things to read and experience that all relate directly back to why I believe in God, certainly.
If we’re drawing those lines, I guess I’d say it’s primarily reason, but really it’s a little of everything.
Not really. My senses got me a certain distance- I guess you’d say, in the ballpark of theism. But to hone it down to the specific stuff I believe, it’s a lot more about reading books, discussing with people, the usual acts of philosophy, and not so much feeling something. I haven’t had any specific sensations I would call ‘Trinitarian’ for example, though it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that some have.
So I would say that for me to cease being a theist would be very much like the ‘elephant’ thing, where the evidence required to do so would be quite outlandishly high. But for me to switch from, say, Christianity to Judaism or whatever, might be more reasonable.
I pretty-much agree on the whole higher-powers greater-intelligence idea. But when I was listing examples, it was basically different words to describe the same thing, some sort of highest points from which everything else passed through or is greatly effected by. There’s allot of different ways we could possibly name or conceptualize a higher organizing process. If we get too busy on specific lesser details, would we be missing out on the main fundamental principal of it all? I’ll bet there is no shortage of people whom argue on whether god’s name is this or that; it’s rediculus, people gave it a name, but it was beyond a name to begin with.
Through the process of politics, christianism passed through monarchy, theocracy, feudalism and despotism, eventually ending up as something which infers people to comply to other people, instead of ONLY providing help to get closer to theoretical God. I would say that in the same way God supposedly needs no idols or carven images, he also does not need any church or any preists, or any sacrifices, or anything else like that. All of nature would be his expression, and his home would be the unlimited beyond. Mainly through observation and reflection upon everything around one’s self, with a recollection that there is a higher order/intelligence, would lead to a personal development where baby-steps are made towards fathoming something a little more which was all-too-graund.
The shamanism and hermeticism before and during christianity’s founding, was itself either a psychadelia or similar, something about mind-openning and extra-sensory. At some point or another, there would be a sort of mystical experience, something so deep and amazing, yet natural and obvious, too, realized as a mind mannaged to grow a bit more and handle such senses. People would have said god or gods as a way to express this, a super-word of some sort, but then also the super-words of most respectable things became quite profane. If you could control someone’s spirituality, you’d have their mind and their dreams and their goals, everything. A control over the minds of people has always been politically the common way of practice.
I highly suspect that it was not God whom chose and ordained all of the religious leaders through history, and it is much more likely that out of their own initiative they were each false representatives, and that God absolutely does not need any kind of representative, in-fact a representative in human form would degrade the truth greatly.
For a progress in right theism to happen,
There must simply be an expansion of the awareness of how things really are at the higher levels of nature.
For the wise, moral laws are unnecissary, as sound reason becomes the whole ethic, and he thus lives by principal or virtue instead of commandments.
To reach that point of mental growth, there must not be too much mental restriction, and intead only the benifites of self-discipline.
I believe if a supernatural inteligent being created everything including concious inteligent beings such as our selves, that he would want us to know him and have a relationship with us. I think he would reveal himself to his creation though some kind of communication. So thats is why i believe that God inspired some men to write His word so that we can know who he is, why we are here, how we came into being, to know what is wrong and right, how we should lead our lives etc. I dont believe in religion and the rituals that come with it. I believe in having a personal relationship with our creator.
I’m happy to talk about God as though he exists and he’s good. However, when I use the word ‘God’, I’m really referring to that element of the Self which shows us love.
For me to start talking about God as though he doesn’t exist, peoples and herds would need to disappear from the world completely and the animals would all need to become extinct. Suffice to say, it’s unlikely that it’ll happen in my lifetime, if ever.
Though my reading of theology is limited, it seems the argument espousing one’s senses as justification for the conclusion that the idea of God has objective reality is scarcely used. Most I’ve read use reason as their justification. Why isn’t this tact taken more often? Why go through the charade of reason and logical arguments for all these millennia when you have the pan-ultimate proof; the great majority purportedly sensing this thing…
